Tough UGC regulations for affiliation of colleges

New Delhi: An aspiring college needs to have
at least two acres of land and facilities in metro cities or
five acres of area with adequate infrastructure and faculty in
non-metros for getting affiliation from a university,
according to a new regulation of UGC.

The UGC (Affiliation of Colleges by Universities)
Regulation 2009, which has already come into force, stipulates
stringent norms for grant of affiliation by universities to
aspiring colleges.
The regulations say that new institutions will have to get
temporary affiliation after which it can be considered for
permanent affiliation by a university.

"This is the first of its kind regulation for affiliation
of colleges. The UGC had issued certain guidelines on
affiliation in 2000-01. While the guidelines were more
advisory in nature, the recently notified regulations are
binding on institutions and the violations are punitive," a
senior UGC official told agency.

For temporary affiliation, an institution needs to have
administrative, academic and other buildings with sufficient
accommodation to meet the immediate academic and other space
requirements.

An institutions needs to create and maintain corpus funds,
varying from Rs 15 lakh to Rs 35 lakh depending on courses, to
meet any exigencies.
The aspiring institution will apply for affiliation to a
university, specifying its development plan for ten years and
its faculty recruitment policy.

The university will grant temporary affiliation only after
conducting an inspection by an expert committee. The expert
committee will examine the library, lab, classrooms, teacher-
student ratio, academic excellence and recommend accordingly.

The university will grant permanent affiliation to those
institutions which have minimum five years of temporary
affiliations. Permanent affiliation of colleges will enable
them to get assistance from the UGC.

The university can withdraw affiliation from institutions
for violation of the criteria.

The UGC has asked the 41 central universities and 256
state universities to follow the new regulations with
immediate effect.